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Academic papers yanked after authors found to have used unlicensed software
(go.theregister.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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In the Register article they didn't copied from the source that the scientists were from Egypt.
Flow3D has different academic and research licenses: https://www.flow3d.com/academic-program/
It's strange that they went after these scientists. In 2nd and 3rd word countries software privacy for work is still common. Everything is cheaper, but software prices are the same as in the US, so they pay relatively more for the same tool. I found that a normal license for Flow 3D can cost USD 100k. According to a quick search civil engineers get USD 2000 yearly in Egypt.
Usually American software companies don't really care about piracy by individuals in these countries. The rationale is that it's better for them if they use their software without payment instead of using a software from another vendor without payment. They go after bigger companies, at least that's my experience.
That's why this story is strange to me, or at least something else should be behind it.
Yup, wide use creates a lock-in effect. If your software is used by everyone, paid or otherwise, it's the standard and you will never run out of paid users. This is why CAD companies offer free tiers and why student subscriptions are always heavily discounted.
More importantly it is better for the company if they use their software without payment instead of developing some sort of competitor (open source or proprietary).
They are users not developers. An academic or civil engineer who uses a CFD simulator usually has not enough programming knowledge develop such a complex application. The employer has not enough funds to pay for developers (see, they use a pirated software). Paying for developers is still more expensive than buying an already developed product.
Just look at the state of FOSS CAD software. There are some, but they are very-very limited compared to proprietary alternatives. Most people don't care, they just want to get the work done. Not everyone is a programmer, even if it looks like that from our lemmy bubble.
Don't underestimate the power of executives to make really dumb choices. My company decided we'd create our own ticketing system this year, and now my Firefox tab consumes multiple gigabytes of ram...
You are thinking too small. Even if only one of a thousand companies in one of dozens of third world nations develops an alternative that is enough.